


Pathways

by WahlBuilder



Category: Mars: War Logs, The Technomancer (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Cultural Differences, Gen, Technomantic Culture, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-07-06 12:35:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15886170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WahlBuilder/pseuds/WahlBuilder
Summary: Instead of letting Sean die, Roy picked him up and made him run with them, and during their journey he discovers similarities and differences between himself and Sean and their cultures.





	Pathways

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PolarGrizz47](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PolarGrizz47/gifts).



Two weeks into their freedom—and Roy is considering stepping onto the rails in front of a speeding train. Or, as an alternative, throwing Sean out of a speeding train.

Roy doesn’t know what compelled him to rouse the bastard and drag him with them into the train. (Oh no, he knows: Innocence was watching.) He wishes they had picked Mary, too, but there was no time to look for her. He hopes she’s okay.

Theoretically, there must be more similarities between him and Sean than differences. In practice, Roy is walking with a limp from a well-placed kick, and Sean is sporting a bruise on his cheekbone.

It has been a fight all the way so far: Sean refuses to lose his jacket, even though it’s a dead giveaway of who he is and, by the way, asshole, we are going to _Shadowlair_ , where, as you might assume, people won’t be happy to see a Technomancer with an Abundance pin on his chest. Making him lose the circlet was a long job, too, taking in the fact that Sean is a stubborn bastard and that the wires were _soldered right to his connectors_. Sean doesn’t have a trine. In fact, he didn’t know what a trine is, until Roy explained. (‘How are you even organised?’—‘We are assigned to an Army unit.’)

All of it makes Roy angry. It makes him feel like a freak—not that not feeling like a freak is all that familiar to him. (He misses Tenacity; the head-hunter rarely made him feel like shit.)

They are Technomancers first and foremost, even though Roy would loudly deny it for himself. Roy has travelled enough to not be weirded out by Sean’s accent, but aside from that, they are supposed to be alike.

They are not, and it’s infinitely frustrating.

Roy is sure Innocence is cataloguing all their bickering and differences.

Sean doesn’t know how to work in a group. He doesn’t know how to work with a kindred Technomancer who is not his ward. Doesn’t know how to join currents, what a whirlpool is, in Technomantic terms; doesn’t know how to make a cone of silence. He doesn’t like being touched—and Roy is not a fan of that himself—but Sean doesn’t offer his hand to exchange signatures. He doesn’t even know how that works. He doesn’t know what electromagnetic signing is, doesn’t speak Binary. Sean doesn’t know how to build a grid, and was surprised when Roy explained what he had done to rouse him after their duel.

Roy feels like one of them is insane.

It takes Roy some days and conversations with Innocence, too, but the pattern comes together in his head, and Roy realises one staggering, sickening truth.

Sean is a weapon.

Most of applications of Technomancy in him are weaponised: means to incapacitate, to kill. His control over his charge, his flow is good—but it is that, _control_. His powers are chained and forced into a tight frame, just like his body is encased in that uniform jacket of his.

Compared to Sean, Roy feels unhinged.

Untreated, untrained, their power is a danger to people in their surroundings—but to treat it like this…

Roy is angry with it—because in the cracks of all that nonsense he sees great passion, a biting sense of humour, compassion, an inquisitive mind. Roy is trying to nurse Innocence back into being himself—help him stop the war in his head—but how does one do it for someone who has been forced to forget that there is _anything_  but war?..

Roy wants to put as much distance between himself and the Auroran Source—he will never be a part of it. But with Abundance? He wants to march there and raze it.

The world is an overwhelming, terrible thing, full of too much noise, uncomfortable textures—and people whom Roy rarely understands. But to not know how to sit down, and close your eyes, and _expand_ , touching upon all living things in your field; to not know that it’s even possible; to not feel the beating heart of Mars… To be _deprived_ of it. To be robbed of life itself.

He can’t stand it.

Innocence is curled up asleep on the bench by Roy’s side, Roy’s jacket serving as a blanket, even though the train heats up well enough—but Roy knows how much of a comfort something heavy might be. Roy hates moving, changing scenery, but throughout the years of his wanderings he has learnt to tolerate it. (He misses travelling with Tenacity.) Sean, though, doesn’t look bothered by their train-hopping. He must have been shipped like this too many times. Like they ship machines of war to the front lines.

Sitting across Roy on another bench, he is watching the walls of the canyon pass by, while Roy is watching him.

They are the same age. (‘ _How_ old are you?!’—‘Thirty.’ It took Roy some moments to remember that Abundance uses a different calendar.) But Sean’s hair is all white (Roy’s white is barely noticeable). It speaks not only of extensive use of Technomancy—but of the unbalanced nature of that use.

Roy hadn’t stayed in the Source long enough to learn some things, to become eligible for some things. He doesn’t think he _could_ find a trine, the people he would belong with. Be something else, something more—not because he wasn’t whole on his own, but because… it is simply how it is. Mars is harsh, and you can’t survive in complete isolation. (He tried; he misses Tenacity; he listens to Innocence’s stories and watches him draw and _aches_.)

He wonders.

Who those people Sean misses are.

He nudges Sean’s leg with the toe of his boot. Sean’s gaze turns to him, eyes narrowing. Before he can say something, Roy asks, ‘Give me your hand.’

Sean sits up straighter, so tight in his jacket. ‘Pardon?’

‘Pardons are granted to criminals. Give me your hand.’ Roy holds out his right hand, the ungloved one. (Abundancean gloves are, too, tools of war, one-signature-fits-all, how are they tolerating it?)

Sean looks down at his hand like Roy’s holding a jellyfish stinger out to him. Sean’s field is so tightly wound Roy wonders how it hasn’t collapsed yet.

‘What for?’ the bastard asks, his gaze on Roy again.

Roy sighs. ‘So I could tear it off your shoulder, why else?’

An eyebrow quirks, and by the spirits, that’s an improvement. Sean reaches with his ungloved hand—his left one—across the compartment. There is a faint web of scars, some white, some gleaming.

Roy takes his hand, the back of Sean’s palm in the cup of his. Sean winces from the usual spark. Sean’s hand is warm—for a non-Technomancer, he would feel as too warm. Roy, oh, Roy never thought he would treasure that spark. For all that shit that was happening in the Source, all that shit where he didn’t belong— He pushes these thoughts aside to be scrutinised later, and presses the pad of his thumb to Sean’s wrist, where his pulse is.

‘What are you—

‘Hush.’

The tendon in Sean’s hand shifts, but Sean doesn’t pull his hand away. And Roy starts humming, low and quiet, because there is the warm Innocence sleeping beside him. Roy pushes the noises of the train to the periphery of his awareness, and focuses on the beating of Sean’s pulse under his thumb and on his own heartbeat. Sean’s field is furled tight—but it doesn’t really matter, Roy has done it with non-Technomancers, too, even with one of Tenacity’s hounds.

‘What is—’

He hums and presses slightly onto the pulse point.

And _synchronises_.

He opens his eyes at Sean’s gasp, and doesn’t let the pulse under his thumb to race. Then he breaks the connection gently and lowers Sean’s hand.

Sean’s eyes are wide, and Roy doesn’t look away. Waiting.

‘What… is this?’ Sean manages after a few moments. He runs a hand, the left one, over his hair, then clasps his hands on his lap.

‘Now I’ll be able to not only feel you when you are in my range, but communicate with you, too,’ Roy says. He doesn’t want to go in-depth into the mechanism of synchronisation and signatures. Sean might not want to know.

‘Communicate how?’

He smirks and shows, changing the rhythm of Sean’s heart just for a moment.

Sean presses a hand to his chest. ‘Can you… Can you stop someone’s heart this way?’

The light in the cab flickers, and Roy, his body tensed up, closes his eyes and clenches his fists to get himself under control.

In his mind, Ophir _burns_.

‘I can,’ he says, deliberately forcing himself to stay quiet. ‘But I won’t. This is _not_ for killing people. Not for killing _anyone_.’ He regrets showing it. He has memorised Sean’s signature already. Anyway when they reach Shadowlair, they all are going to part ways: Sean trying to disappear or maybe send a message to his family he so obviously misses, back in the Source; Innocence returning home. And Roy—back to wandering. (He misses Tenacity; he misses Innocence already.)

Sean sighs. ‘It is hard to break one’s habits.’

Roy opens his eyes. Sean is rubbing his wrist, a distant look on his face. Then he closes his hand over the pin on his chest and unclasps it. He turns it in his hands, then gets up and reaches to open the window a fraction. The sound of wind rushes in.

Sean throws the pin out.

Innocence stirs beside Roy. ‘Our stop?’

Roy puts a hand on his side, smiling. ‘No, kid. Go back to sleep.’

Innocence shuffles under the jacket and goes still again.

Sean closes the window and sits down. He looks… astonished. Then turns to Roy.

Roy tilts his head. ‘Better?’

‘Perhaps,’ Sean replies. Then the corner of his mouth quirks up.

And Roy barely avoids a kick to the shins.


End file.
